Saturday morning, I left for the train station at 04:30, alone, to make the bus, to the train, to the airport. Kevin went to Hubert's farewell party last night and still wasn't back by the time I left, so I thought I was visiting Amsterdam solo. By some miracle he made it to the station where we met up and boarded the train. After a slow moving security line (including a group of 60 year olds with a costume of a woman's chest) we just made the last boarding call, and a short flight and train ride later, we arrived at Amsterdam Centraal Station. We stopped to get some Amsterdam "souvenirs" and eventually found the Aroza hostel and checked in. Not the nicest accommodation, but it was cheap and in a good location, and the roommates were nice (2 guys from England and 2 from Sweden). It was pretty run down though, which just forced us to get out and see the city. So off we went. First we rented a couple bikes for the day, as everyone in Amsterdam uses bikes or Vespas as their main transportation. There are almost no main streets, stop lights, or any big cars in the city at all, but bikes are everywhere. Now apparently we ended up coming to Amsterdam on a special day, the day of the annual gay pride parade, so the streets and canals were packed with scantily clad, rainbow colored people partying all day. At first, I took the optimistic approach (at least the city's alive) but after fighting our way through the raves in the street for a while, it got a little old. We escaped the city and took a trip to the Museumplein, a park surrounded by a trio of museums. After I failed a couple times on the skate park with my rental bike and we finished taking the touristy pictures in front of the I amsterdam sign, we went into the Van Gogh Museum. I enjoyed his artwork and found his ability to almost "paint wind" and capture movement in his brushstrokes impressive, and his juxtaposition of seemingly inconsistent colors to capture a continuous image unique. I should be an art critic. I couldn't help but think while looking at his numerous self-portraits that this guy's job at 30-something was literally to paint himself. Not a bad life. Overall, it was a great trip in the museum. As soon as we left the museum, it started absolutely pouring buckets and we had to doge under some coverings and into a couple restaurants. It put a little damper on the day, but about 30 minutes later it cleared up and we headed back to the city for dinner. All the pubs in the area were overtaken by the gay pride parade, but we eventually found a relatively quiet Italian plan, that is until a crowd of partiers came in, tried to kick us out, and just yelled in Dutch for a while. Again, we'd had enough of fighting our way through the rave so we biked up to Vodelpark. It's a beautiful area, and we rode our bikes around there for a while. I taught Kevin how to ride hands free, and we just glided past the lakes and trees around the whole park. After that, we rode through de Pipe district, which is more of where the residents live, past the de Gooyer windmill and Artis zoo, along the canals, and back to the hostel. The contrast between the hopping party area and the serene canals and parks was amazingly stark. Later Saturday night, we decided to check out the infamous Amsterdam red light district. It took a while for us to find it, and it seemed awkward to ask someone where it is, but there were so many people when we got there, it's more like a tourist attraction than a shady area. There were the typically bachelor parties, but also guys with their girlfriends, and even families (giving the birds and bees talk with visuals?). We walked up and down the street, window shopping if you will, then got some waffles and ice cream, and sat on the bank of the canal, people watching and talking for a while. It was a fun night, and a great ending to a distinctly Amsterdam day.
Sunday morning we were exhausted from the lack of sleep before the flight, so we slept in for a little while but not too long since we still wanted to make the most of the day. We started by riding the bikes west toward the Jordaan district and through Westerpark. I let Kevin take the lead on the bikes which turned out to be a pretty bad idea as he got us to the middle of an industrial park and almost run over by a car on the highway. We found our way back to the city, had some breakfast in a local cafe (decided to pass on the numerous "coffee shops" which just sell a stimulant drug other than caffeine - marijuana) and then rode back to Centraal station to return the bikes. Without the bikes, we took a walking tour of Amsterdam, basically following the canals in a big loop around the city. We stopped into the Cheese Museum and the Tullip Museum, walked by the Anne Frank huis (the line for this was way too long on both days), looked up at the Westerkerk church, passed through the Bloemenmarkt (the worlds largest floating flower market), ate lots of free cheese at the all too many cheese shops, spent some time in the Spui and Waterlooplein squares, traversed the famous Skinny bridge, walked down Rembrandt's old street (since my old nickname is of course Rembrandt), and back to Centraal Station. Oh yeah, and I jumped off a bridge. I had been planning to jump into the Thames in London at some point, in following my dad, but I figured the Amsterdam canals would be pretty legendary too. So, I climbed over the rail and to all the locals surprise, jumped off. The water was actually really refreshing on the warm day, though a little bit dirty. It could have gone really bad as, even though I asked Kevin if there were any boats below me, I almost landed in a peddle boat coming out from under the bridge. In the end, it all worked out, I felt good, I carried on the Gunther tradition of jumping into random bodies of water that shouldn't be swum in, and I impressed some kids on the bank who started chanting "Again! Again!" I've even been called an American hero, but really I think I probably just reinforced the stupid American stereotype with the locals. After the refreshing dip, Kevin and I decided to stay above the water, and take a canal cruise through the city. It was very relaxing (although the driver kind of hated me) and it was cool to see the city from a new vantage point, especially the people going by in their own boats and the houseboats lining the sides. Now we had seen all of Amsterdam by bike, foot, and boat. That night we returned to the Red Light District to see what the Sunday crowd was like (pretty much the same) and then chilled by the National Monument for a little while to end our great weekend in Amsterdam.
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